


follow you down wherever you go

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [31]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 'The Velveteen Rabbit' is a horribly toxic little story, Disabled Character, Flashbacks, M/M, Mentally Ill Character, Natasha's Psychological Expertise, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5233391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>how hard would it be to find out what was last viewed on a smashed tablet?</i> </p><p>[Steve] expects Tony to ask for details, is resigned and prepared to type enough to satisfy him even one-handed on the stupid phone. Instead Tony just replies, <i>nlss u cpied that cmmrcl & stuck in blender & ttly fuked it up or sthing stupid? not. opposite of,</i> and then adds, <i>if u need new 1 dn't buy yt ive got sthing u shld try 1st</i>. </p><p><i>That</i> makes Steve eye the screen warily for a minute, as a stand in for eyeing Tony the same way. He sends, <i>try not to build Skynet, OK?</i> </p><p>Tony tosses back, <i>holy shit a pop culture reference less than 40 yrs old. barely. nice work! also fuck *you* I would never build skynet.</i> </p><p>(immediately follows <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2223564">shake off all of your sins</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	follow you down wherever you go

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it.
> 
> OH RIGHT, NOTE I FORGOT: while technically in the movie when Steve finds Bucky he's fully clothed that . . . makes absolutely no sense in the case of someone who's being subjected to invasive medical/scientific experiments. (There's a reason hospital gowns are what they are.) So I have just sort of edited that bit.
> 
> ETA: And for those who never read it, [The Velveteen Rabbit](http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html). (It really takes less than ten minutes to read.)

It takes Bucky longer to hit the wall than Steve expects, and that worries him. It's the metaphorical wall, the one that lives on the other side of panic, self-annihilating desperation and adrenaline backwash, all that stuff that burns through your body like an inferno through oxygen and leaves you exhausted and flattened on the other side, and when Bucky _does_ hit it he more or less falls asleep between one word and the next, but how long it takes bothers Steve more than a bit. 

Because it doesn't mean the whole thing isn't as bad as Steve thinks it is. It doesn't take longer because Bucky _isn't_ as messed up, wound up as Steve thinks he is, because Bucky's burning through less or has more to burn. 

Not even close. 

It's that the single-minded crawl back is further, and the sex so much more thoroughly laced with a desperation that isn't about sex at all. And that's not it either, in and of itself, because that: that's familiar, can't not be familiar by now. It happens, Bucky throwing himself at this like Steve's a life-ring in a hurricane, a life-line over an abyss, and like this is the only way Bucky can _know_ that Steve's real. That Steve's real, and that the world's real. 

Fundamentally, that's not a problem. At all. Steve can do that, be that, that's _fine_. 

Bucky _needing_ it . . .gives Steve a certain amount of concern. Okay, a lot of concern. 

Bucky falls asleep pretty much where he stops moving, with his head resting on Steve's upper arm, his left arm lying across his own ribs and his right bent so the back of his hand's resting on Steve's shoulder. And it really is almost between one word and another, between one thought and the next: what starts as a blink ends with eyes softening closed, breath slowing, muscles relaxing for whatever value of "relax" ever applies to Bucky. 

It reminds Steve of the first time Bucky fell asleep beside him, after he came home. Like some animal instinct down below all the thinking parts of his brain leaping on the available moment and making damn sure sleep happens, and _right now_. Which makes him think about changes, about things that are better because, well - 

Six months ago, Steve would have been afraid to move. Now he knows he can do what he's going to, which starts with carefully pulling his arm out from under Bucky's head. 

It's enough to make Bucky slit one eye open like the crankiest cat in the world, so Steve can talk him into letting Steve strip the coverlet (now in desperate need of laundering) off the bed, then talk him into pulling his own sweats and sleep shirt on and actually bothering to work in under the duvet - if only because Steve knows Bucky's body-temperature tends to drop like a rock times like this. This and any other time it has half an excuse, admittedly, but especially times like this. 

Steve kicks the balled up coverlet out of the way of the door, pulls on his own sweats and goes to get his phone. 

The window of safety is under five minutes: longer and the parts of Bucky's brain that run the paranoia and hypervigilance wake back up, but the exhaustion - especially the mental side - doesn't actually go away, and that gets . . . miserable. Under five minutes, though, and most of the time it's okay. As long as what Bucky _wants_ is to go back to sleep, as long as he's fighting that direction instead of the other one, then back to sleep he'll fall and pretty damn fast, like nothing woke him up to start with. 

And that, Steve makes sure to remind himself as he finds his phone in the pocket of the jacket he abandoned when he came home, falls under the heading of _significant progress_ because six months ago Steve didn't know he could do all this . . . because six months ago he _couldn't_. Six months ago it wouldn't work. Steve reminds himself of that and holds it up against the gnawing worry about how messed up Bucky was when Steve came home. 

It's almost hard to quantify what's gnawing at him so much. Bucky's had full on flashbacks, complete dissociative episodes (Steve's given up and called a spade a spade, because at this point it's stupid not to) where all the past months just seem to . . . go missing and he's back with to the blankness of before. Or even further back, like the night before he let Elizabeth and Tony look at his old arm, where his head threw him back before HYDRA took his memories the first time. All of that. 

But those aren't - 

They upset Steve. They upset him a lot. He hates seeing Bucky like that, hates that it still happens, and hates the twitching guilt and self-disgust Bucky gets afterwards. But they're not like today. Bucky comes out of those and he's . . . himself, just tired and miserable and frustrated. He's not . . .thrown, not half- _frantic_ like today. 

Not desperate. Not like he was scared this might not actually be real. 

So Steve needs to remember that there's been so much damn improvement in so many ways, even with this. And thankfully right now Bucky's not awake enough to feel guilty that he's asleep and Steve isn't, but Steve's still here: when Steve settles back on the bed, pillows behind him, Bucky rolls over to throw his arm across Steve's waist, rest his head just underneath Steve's ribs, and goes sleep-still again.

Steve smooths his hand over Bucky's hair and for a minute wastes the effort wishing there were some way to . . .he's not even sure what. Make a copy of these moments, how they feel, how they feel to _Steve_ , to hand to Bucky later and prove that _it's okay_. It's not some kind of trial or anything. He doesn't _need_ to feel guilty. 

Not that Steve doesn't know why it doesn't work like. Not that he, of all people, doesn't know how pride and self-resentment work and how they get tangled up in everything that helps at all, if it comes from someone else. He could point out he's a terrible role-model and that if he could go back in time he'd give his younger self a gentle cuff upside the head and explain a few things (including how nobody likes a date who's already on the sullen defensive before you even _meet_ ) but it probably wouldn't help. 

Plus for Bucky pride gets even more tangled up and difficult, because it's tied in with being a person instead of a thing, and with not just giving up and going to sleep forever, with memory and sense of self; it rips him up and messes him up and he still needs it, and Steve doesn't know how to separate the two kinds of pride and he knows Bucky doesn't either, so it just stays, and cuts both ways. 

Sometimes Steve wonders if there's anything that _doesn't_ cut both ways. 

He shakes that off and clears the text-messages he missed (nothing time-sensitive or overly important), clears his email (when did he start getting so much email?), before he hits _send message_ beside Tony's name and texts, _how hard would it be to find out what was last viewed on a smashed tablet?_

He expects Tony to ask for details, is resigned and prepared to type enough to satisfy him even one-handed on the stupid phone. Instead Tony just replies, _nlss u cpied that cmmrcl & stuck in blender & ttly fuked it up or sthing stupid? not. opposite of,_ and then adds, _if u need new 1 dn't buy yt ive got sthing u shld try 1st_. 

_That_ makes Steve eye the screen warily for a minute, as a stand in for eyeing Tony the same way. He sends, _try not to build Skynet, OK?_

Tony tosses back, _holy shit a pop culture reference less than 40 yrs old. barely. nice work! also fuck *you* I would never build skynet._

And Steve reflects it's amazing how Tony's words and sentences flesh back out into something resembling real English when he's annoyed. 

_good_ , is what Steve closes with, and closes the app, on the basis that a defensive Tony isn't worth talking to. Then, on the basis of really-why-not, he opens a different app to pre-order Korean delivery for later. 

It's funny, he thinks, how fast a smart-phone does become one of the most useful things you own, when you actually have a life and more shows up on it than Natasha's texts telling you where to meet her. Smileys and all. 

He puts the phone down, aside but within reach, and closes his eyes for a bit. Reassembles in his head the day that got derailed the minute he walked in the door. It takes a minute, but that's all, to sort it into things he can just forget about (like a movie, which he's had increasing success luring Bucky _out_ of the condo for) and stuff he can just move to tomorrow (like figuring out what's wrong with the dishwasher). Absolutely none of it's important enough that he has to even think about it further than that, which is good, because the inside of his head feels a little battered and besides, he's not moving for who-knows-how-long. 

He wouldn't be, even if there were something more important: very little is _that_ important. But it's nice not to even need to worry or give it another thought. He's got enough thoughts for six minds already. 

Like: improvement in general or not, it's been a while since something threw Bucky _that_ badly. A good while since something threw him to the point that Bucky doesn't even _notice_ which language he's using, when he's dropping to Russian or back to English the way he did more than once, let alone choose between them. Or the point where it's obvious to Steve, at least, that even if Bucky's not actually _thinking_ about it, even if he's talking and seems like he knows what's real, what the world is . . . even if, there's something in his subconscious expecting euphemistic "consequences". 

Expects punishment. Expects pain - no, Steve thinks, inside of his head abruptly vicious, let's be completely fucking honest here: expects _torture_. Is just waiting for it. And waiting for it to come from Steve.

And the bruising on Bucky's arm should be gone by tomorrow, but it'll be livid for a few hours, and it's hard enough to get either of them to bruise at all. And Steve doesn't think he'd've stopped, if Steve hadn't stopped him. Not before bone broke. Not before there'd been serious damage done. _Something_ threw him back, threw him badly enough for _that_. 

Steve doesn't like not knowing what did it. The smashed tablet says it was something Bucky'd been reading, but Steve can't think what: most stuff that might be a problem Bucky's already figured out how to filter or avoid, or at the very least get away from. And what to do afterwards. Accidental news stories or Wikipedia entries that weren't a good idea end up with him twitchy and withdrawn and angry, at _worst_ checked out, not . . . like that. 

Steve'll take the remains of the tablet to Tony tomorrow. He needs to return some books to Elizabeth anyway. 

He considers finding an ebook to read for now, but honestly, _he's_ tired. Bucky doesn't usually sleep like this for that long, and if sleeping now means Steve can't sleep tonight . . . he can always read then. And it'll make Bucky feel less guilty later. 

He pushes himself down from sitting to lying on his side, pulling a pillow with him to settle on. Bucky stirs, but only barely, only to settle himself further up Steve's chest, head on Steve's shoulder. 

And the important part is it's fine, now; the important part is it'll be okay. 

That's always the important part.

 

It's actually four days before Steve makes it to the Tower. 

He expected there to be fallout, aftermath; he knew it wasn't like Bucky was just going to be able to completely shake off whatever hit him like it never happened. But he'd expected . . . well, anger. Anger directed inward, resentment - he basically expected Bucky to be in a foul damn mood, resentful and touchy and then mad at himself for being resentful and touchy and round and round it goes. That's not great, but it's - well, it's familiar. Again. 

What it turns out, though, is that Bucky's wary, twitchy, wound up and constantly watching Steve out of the corner of his eye, the way he used to all the time and hasn't for ages. And that, Steve doesn't like, and he also doesn't like the idea of leaving Bucky alone to stew on whatever's got him twisted up. _Especially_ since Bucky can't really remember and might end up digging at his memory to try and figure it out. 

God only knows what that could shake loose. 

So Steve finds excuses to stay in. Like starting a painting of the street outside the front window as technical exercise. That kind of stuff. 

It makes him even less sanguine when Bucky doesn't even give him sidelong sardonic looks, the ones that say he sees what Steve does there, and instead just sits close on the couch. Sometimes he has a book; sometimes he's messing around with his phone, in absence of the tablet. He's got an account on Instagram, Steve knows. He posts pictures, and otherwise doesn't say anything, or answer comments or messages, or even follow anyone. He's got a couple other accounts on other sites that are basically the same: the internet equivalent of sitting on the roof and watching people go by. 

Occasionally he shares some big dramatic conflict that's going on, sometimes just so Steve can join him in being baffled by the stuff people will get _really, really_ upset about, and by how they'll try to dress it up in the clothes of something a lot more serious to make people . . .well, take them seriously. 

And Steve will never understand people's fascination with and emotional investment in the sex live of people they've never met. 

And then sometimes Bucky will gleefully share something _about_ Steve with Steve, so Steve can marvel (well, that's one word for it anyway) at how two groups of people with completely opposing views and values can both be mad at him at the same time. The last one had been because some journalist who'd clearly been strapped for a story had dredged up a couple paragraphs about the progress on "official Captain America merchandise" and suddenly everyone and their dog had an opinion to share. 

("So let me get this straight," Steve'd said. "On the one hand I'm a sentimental socialist idiot - 

"Who's been sadly corrupted by the air-headed liberals of the twenty-first century who have hijacked you with their PC agenda," Bucky had added.

" - right, because I'm not okay with people making money off, let's be totally clear about this, _me_ , while being exploitative union-busting pieces of shit. But on the _other_ hand, I'm a heartless capitalist tool because I'm maintaining licensing control over, well, me." 

"Also you said free trade was a good idea in principle," Bucky said, and Steve'd frowned. 

"I don't even remember that," he admitted. 

"The internet remembers," Bucky'd said, looking amused. "The internet remembers _everything_. Except for how everyone thinks they completely fucking invented political discourse. And sex. And socialism. And people really fucking hating socialism. And being complete fucking assholes to one another."

"See that's just proof they teach history wrong now," Steve'd replied, and Bucky'd laughed.

"Every once in a while," he said, "someone cracks me up by coming around and pointing out that back when, we didn't have an internet to yell at each other on, so we just went around and punched each other in the face instead."

"At least," Steve agreed.) 

Right now, though, Bucky doesn't share anything, or really talk much if Steve doesn't start it. He doesn't look unhappy, just . . . wary, and he's quiet. 

Steve tries to keep as close an eye as he can without making it completely obvious he's keeping an eye. And he tries to respond every time it looks like Bucky wants to get closer or wants physical contact. Maybe part of him worries he's . . . overestimating it, but a part he trusts a lot more smacks that part down and replays _can I worry you more often?_ across the screen of memory, and tells _this_ worry to shut up. 

So Steve stays in, except for a couple walks to get coffee or meals or just to be out of the condo so it doesn't feel like a prison. And they ensure that Natasha will never stop laughing at him by breaking the dining-room table (Bucky's left hand closing just enough to start a split in the wood and the rest giving in, dumping them both on the floor), which Steve decides he doesn't care about since the thing breaking and dumping them both naked on the ground was the first time he'd heard Bucky laugh in days. 

On day four, though, Bucky says he's restless and he's going out, so after he's gone Steve pulls the broken tablet out of the drawer in the kitchen where he put it to get it out of the way, and heads for the Tower. 

 

When he gets there, Tony's in an unexpected meeting with someone from DC. JARVIS greets him with the news and when Steve asks what's up, JARVIS replies, "Something exceedingly vexing," which is JARVIS-speak for _I can't actually tell you right now, but there was definitely a lot of profanity going on before he actually went._

Steve asks JARVIS to pass along _no rush_ , and heads up to the Lounge. 

It's new, and technically on the map it's a "private recreation lounge". Steve's pretty sure people in the building who know about it refer to it as either Superhero Lounge or Avengers Lounge, and "pretty sure" in this case means that he's overheard people use both. Without sarcastic air-quotes, even. 

It's the second floor down after the private floors, and used to be restricted storage until Tony had all that cleared out and made the Lounge instead. If you asked him why, he shrugged and said, _It'll be useful_ , and then changed the subject.

It wouldn't've occurred to Steve, but now that it's there he thinks Tony was probably onto something: before, the only way to really spend time with anyone living or staying in the Tower at any given time was either to be right in each other's suites, or go down to one of the public cafes or diners in the Tower. And that wasn't bad, except there's some stuff it's really not a great idea to talk about in public, so it meant that someone always had to be playing host, and frankly Steve thinks the only person who lives here or even stays all that much who doesn't at least occasionally have reason to hesitate about letting someone in is Thor. 

And he thinks that's mostly because Thor's used to not having much in the way of private space. From what Steve's gathered, talking with him, the price of knowing that (as royal) every inch of Asgard was yours is basically also knowing that every inch of Asgard owns you, and has the right to your time and attention at any given moment, including in your bedroom. Earth is kind of like a holiday, at least at the moment. Which Thor can probably use. 

Tony's solution to the problem is the Lounge, which nobody can get into but them, people they bring with them, and Tower domestic staff JARVIS lets in. Clint Barton's comment, on looking around it for the first time, had been, "Oh look, Stark built us a Common Room." 

Not that Barton was wrong. Not that it isn't obvious, either - both from this and from some other things - that the last time Tony had more than two friends was college. But that didn't stop it from being a good idea, either, and it didn't stop anyone - including Clint - from using it. 

It's an open floor, unfinished ceiling, different spaces delineated by furniture instead of walls: one corner's got a massive TV screen surrounded by basically everything anyone could ever want to sit on, including a beanbag chair, there's other couches in other places, like beside a pool table and a few other table-top games that Steve's not even sure what they _are_ yet, and a kitchen area in the middle with a bar, and a beautifully tiled (Steve's the first to admit) hot-tub out at the little recessed deck area. 

Even Steve's noticed that the furniture and, well, decor, is a lot less of Tony's usual "I'm on the cutting edge of modern interior decorating because I _can_ " and a lot more comfortable and rough-edged and probably, Steve suspects, a better representation of what Tony actually _likes_ , as opposed to what Tony feels the need to show. 

It's kind of sad that the need to make that show gets all the way into his bedroom, so to speak, but it's also very . . . Tony. Hopefully Pepper likes the modernist style she puts up with living in, at least. 

Today Natasha's sitting curled up in the beanbag chair, restlessly clicking through what's on live-broadcast on the screen. 

That, Steve thinks, is the funny thing. It's not like she doesn't have her own TV, he's pretty sure, but somehow sitting down _here_ endlessly switching channels and running through menus of shows on the various services is so much less . . . shut in, than doing it in your own suite. Even if Bruce and Betty are both guaranteed to be in the labs, Pepper's working, Tony's in a meeting, Jane and Thor are in Reykjavik and Steve and Bucky are at home. It doesn't really matter that it's not _likely_ you'll run into anyone down here, instead of up there. 

It's just that you _could_. 

She looks up and half-waves when Steve comes in, but doesn't get up, and she looks - well, "wan" is not really a word Steve would normally think of attaching to Natasha, unless she was projecting it on purpose, but right now, she looks wan. She's wearing leggings and a pretty soft-looking red sweater, kind of like a house-coat but not. She's got it wrapped shut, and there's a plastic water-bottle with something yellow-brown cut up and floating on the surface of the water. Her hair's back in a french braid. 

He sits down in the arm-chair beside the beanbag chair as she stops channel-flicking and hits the mute button. Some news show plays silently and Steve ignores it. 

"What brings you?" she asks, as he settles, and he holds up the broken tablet. From here, he can see that what's floating on her water is sliced ginger. 

"Need Tony to tell me what this thing was doing and showing just before it got broken," he says, and raises his eyebrows at her. "You look terrible," he says, because close up she kind of does, in the _obviously sick_ kind of way. She gives him a thin smile. 

"Thanks," she retorts. "Unlike _some_ people, my immune system is only _good_ , not super-human and I managed to pick up norovirus somewhere. Probably at some damn restaurant." When Steve gives her a questioning look she elaborates, "Really, really awful stomach bug. I'm not actually throwing up anymore," she adds, "and I'm ritually washing my hands, and if I stayed in one place anymore I was going to snap and kill everyone." She gives him a mock-serious look. "And I mean everyone. Everywhere. All of them." 

Steve suppresses a smile. "That," he says, "would sound more convincing if you sounded less like the human version of a wet dishcloth." Natasha smiles slightly in acknowledgement, and Steve asks, "How long have you been sick?" 

"About a week," she says. "I get paranoid and kind of excessively sensitive when I'm sick, so I wasn't really letting on. I might have been answering your texts," she adds, as Steve makes their conversations of the last week line up, "from my nest of comforter and towels on the bathroom floor. I was camped out there for a while." 

This time Steve can't help laughing a little. "No wonder you didn't want to go for coffee," he says, and she laughs, too. 

"What about you?" she asks. "How's your week? What's so important about a messed up tablet?" 

Steve's going to let it go past: she's sick, it's not like he needs advice, he could just say it's been a bit stressful and leave it. He takes a breath to answer. 

Then he lets that breath out, rubs his face, and gives in. Spends the next few minutes telling her. He feels better when he's done, and he's not sure why. 

"I think I'll keep the norovirus," she says, when he's done. She says it with the kind of straight face that's supposed to mean you're joking, but Steve thinks she's probably serious underneath that, all the same. "Tired?" 

"Not so much tired as I just can't . . . " Steve opens one hand, then drops it to his knee. "I can't figure what it could be. You know?" 

Natasha shifts, turns herself a bit in her beanbag nest and then settles again. "Can be surprisingly small things, sometimes," she tells him, actually serious this time. 

The nearer of the two doors leading to the rest of the Tower opens: Tony comes through, scans the room, kicks it closed and announces, "Ah-hah, the plague carrier!" all in sort of one connected moment of movement and sound. Natasha gets the kind of patiently tolerant face she gets a lot around Tony and gives him an unimpressed look. 

"If you don't cut it the fuck out, Stark," she says, calmly, "I'm going to go lick your desk." 

Tony's carrying what looks like a tablet of his own, a cord, and a stylus. He points the stylus at Natasha and says, "Ew," and then at Steve and says, "Broken thing." 

He's brisk, less with the scattered perpetual motion and more with the kind of quick gestures and clipped speech he gets when he's busy and not having much fun with it; Steve hands him the broken tablet and says, "Unexpectedly full day?" 

"Yeah," Tony says, plugging one end of the cord into the tablet he's carrying and one into Steve's, "I - a plague on both Houses and both parties of our government, basically. Or rocks could fall from the sky and crush them, carefully missing everyone else, I'm not picky. I would actually love to just stay here until they get frustrated and go away but if I leave her alone in a room with Senator Gaskill Pepper might actually kill me." 

He's frowning at the unbroken tablet while he talks, tapping and dragging the stylus. "And - there," he says, pulling the cord out of the unbroken one and turning it around to face Steve, holding it out. "List of everything this one was doing," he says, holding up the broken tablet, "plus, take that home with you and see how it works. One of a few prototypes, let me know what you think of it." 

As Steve says, "Okay," Tony's turning to look, for just a moment, at the kitchen. Or, Steve realizes, not at the kitchen, but at the bar. 

Just as Steve realizes that, Natasha says, "Don't even think about it, Stark."

Tony turns back, quickly, and scowls at her. "I'm frankly insulted, Not Agent Anymore Romanoff," he says, and Steve covers his mouth to hide the smile at Natasha's look of bland indifference. 

"As long as you're not going in to talk to senators under the influence," she says, sweetly, "you be just as insulted as you like." And Tony rolls his eyes and turns to Steve, pointedly ignoring her. 

"I would stay and talk more," he says, "but Pepper really might actually kill me. Or maybe him, you never know, but that would be awkward. I called a coffee break because my eyes were actually starting to glaze over. Seriously, try that thing out," and he points at the tablet again, "let me know what you think and, you know. Pray for me that my brains don't actually trickle out my ears before I escape today." 

"Thanks," Steve says, "I will. And you could've said today wasn't a good day, you know," he adds, only to get a blank look. 

"No, see," Tony says, "then I wouldn't've had a reason to call a coffee break and come down here and talk around the subject of how _fucking stupid_ everyone in that room that isn't Pepper, me, or working for me is, and briefly escape being immersed in the nightmare of experiencing what, exactly, runs this country." When he adds, "Please feel free to have any emergency you find convenient in the next few hours," and still kind of sounds serious, Steve actually feels sorry for him. 

He doubts senators have changed much - for worse or for better - since he had to deal with them, after all. 

"Good luck," he says, which Tony acknowledges with a vague wave. He hands the broken tablet back to Steve, pointedly ignores Natasha in a way that might as well be waving goodbye to her too, and takes himself back out the door. 

Natasha shakes her head, looking amused and actually kind of fond. Glancing back at Steve, she adds, "If he's dealing with Gaskill, all that bitching may actually be fair." 

"Not a great guy?" Steve asks, absently. He wakes the tablet up by swiping across the screen. In the application open, there's what looks like a snapshot of every app the broken tablet'd been running at the time, and what they were doing. For maybe a fraction of a second he starts to wonder how getting that would work, before he stops himself on the basis that he really, really isn't qualified to figure out mobile operating systems yet. Instead, he starts scanning through. 

"You ever noticed how there are two kinds of sleaze?" Natasha asks. The leather of the beanbag chair creaks a little as she adjusts her position for comfort.

"The kind where it's obvious you could wring them out and use what you get to deep fry," Steve suggests, "and then the kind you almost don't notice until you realize you kinda desperately want a shower?" 

"That's a pretty good summary," Natasha agrees. She sounds amused. "Gaskill's the second. Really, really the second." 

That sounds like the voice of experience, and Steve means to answer, but he gets distracted and then forgets what they were talking about, as he scowls at the screen. 

Mostly, he gets distracted by the fact that, explanation-wise, he's striking out: absolutely nothing he can see looks like it'd be reason for any kind of breakdown, let alone the one that happened. It's just Reddit and Twitter and a BBC article on some new archeology dig, and six or seven Wikipedia articles. 

He doesn't realize the silence's stretched as long as it has until Natasha says, "Not finding anything?" and then Steve blinks and shakes his head. 

"Sorry," he says, dragging himself back to the room, then, "no, actually, I'm not." He frowns at the screen again. "At all." 

The Wiki articles don't even follow any pattern. There's one on some band, one on basket-weaving, one on the history of the spoon, all kinds of stuff, down to an article on some kid's story. That one has a sub-tab, but that just turns out to be a copy of the story, because it's in the public domain. 

When Natasha holds out her hand, Steve passes the tablet over, but it's not really out of any hope she'll find anything. It's just that thing you do, when something's frustrating you, so the other person can see why it's so frustrating. 

So he's surprised when her face suddenly twists into a wry smile. 

She murmurs something very quietly in Russian that he doesn't quite catch, and then sighs, taps the screen and hands it back to him: now the screen's showing the public-domain story "I wouldn't've called it," she tells him, "but looking at it, I'm not surprised. There weren't a lot of kids books around your place when you were a kid, were there," she asks, as Steve takes the tablet and frowns just a bit in confusion. 

"One old one of my dad's when he was a kid, with some fairy-tales in it, heroes and giants and stuff, but that's about it," he confirms. 

"Mm," Natasha says, "well. That," and she points to the tablet, "is pretty popular. It's also," she goes on in a very slightly sing-song voice, "one of the most poisonous pieces of shit Anglophone parents innocently feed their kids, which they do, over and over again, usually around Christmas time. Go ahead and read it," she adds. "It won't take long." 

Still puzzled, Steve glances down at the tablet; the story's called _The Velveteen Rabbit_. He scrolls down the screen, and she's right; it's not that long. So he sits back and reads. 

 

Natasha's right again. 

It takes him about ten minutes to read. He can feel Natasha watching him, and feels like she's waiting. He even knows when, exactly, he must start showing the reaction she's looking for: it'd be hard to to hide it and he doesn't bother. 

But the thing that actually bugs him has nothing to do with her, because the thing that actually bugs him is how, if he hadn't picked this up _looking_ to see how she could think it's the problem, he might've missed it. He might've missed just how messed up it is, just how sick the story's idea of love, any kind of love, really is. Missed the portrait of what amounts to silent, passive slavery, stripping you, wearing you down and wearing you out - or how it ends in being thrown away, cast off and completely forgotten. 

He might've seen it. But he might've missed it, too, dismissed the whole as a cute kids' story about magical toys and not looked hard enough, not seen what it actually said. 

Steve takes a deep breath, and puts the tablet to sleep. He says, "That is . . . " and trails off. 

"Mm," Natasha agrees. She's leaning her head on her fist. "The first time I read it was in a mark's daughter's bedroom, and I loved it. It spoke to me. Which is really," she says, sighing, "all the proof you need it's pretty sick." 

Steve rubs finger-and-thumb tips over his eyes. "Damn it," he says, under his breath. She's right, that's probably - okay almost certainly - what started the whole damn thing, and - 

Damn it. 

"The worst part," Natasha adds, "is it's really easy for the underpinnings, the - " she looks thoughtful. 

"Emotional logic?" Steve offers sourly when she looks like she's searching for the words, and Natasha gives him a thin smile. 

"Someone's done lots of homework," she says, "yeah. The emotional logic is seductive. Especially if you're already primed a certain way. Just wait, and be good, and be good _enough_ and . . . " she spreads the fingers of her free hand. "If you give him half a chance," she adds, "Clint will tell you in _detail_ about how this story's the Platonic example of one of the most toxic memes in our culture." 

"He might not be wrong," Steve says, and it's his turn to sigh. "And I guarantee you the writer thought she was teaching generosity, virtue and charity, all wrapped up in a sweet story about a kid and a toy. Damn." 

Natasha quirks an eyebrow. "I think that's the most I've heard you swear at any one time," she notes. 

"Yeah, Mom had a thing about swearing," Steve replies, absently, leaning his elbows on his knees and frowning at a dot on the area rug. "It kinda stuck." 

He almost wants to think that this, this still can't possibly account for everything, it's just a story, it's not enough. And mostly he thinks he wants to think that because he knows how Bucky'll react - probably, anyway - to finding out a kids' story about a damn rabbit threw him so badly. But the thing is, the story, the ideas, it's all . . . sticky. Really damned sticky. Steve can feel it even inside _his_ head, rattling around, bouncing off levers put in there all the way back to childhood and trying to argue with what he knows. 

That it's not so bad, that it might be a little excessive but love and sacrifice - 

He finds himself standing up. Feels agitated and restless and belatedly takes the excuse of going to get a soda out of the fridge in the kitchen area. He glances over and asks, "Want something?" but Natasha shakes her head. 

"I have my ginger-water," she says. 

Steve grabs a Mountain Dew, because he's not up for dealing with how Coca-Cola tastes wrong right now. He doesn't really want the Mountain Dew either, but it's an excuse for moving and gives him something to do with his hands. And its taste is one-hundred-percent pure 21st century to him, because he'd never had it before waking up, so it doesn't get complicated on him. 

"The thing about it is," he finds himself saying, like he can't just keep his thoughts in his head to work this out, they have to be out there where someone can hear them, "the thing is, it wouldn't be so bad - " He stops and tries to put his thoughts in a line, since now he's started he might as well finish. Natasha looks at him expectantly. 

"It would still be a bit messed up," Steve says finally, "if it were the _Rabbit's_ love for the _Boy_ that made him real. Still a bit messed up. But not as much. Because people do extreme things out of love." 

Natasha's expression turns just a bit towards something that wants to ask were bears shit and details about the pope's religion, so Steve stops and acknowledges that with a gesture. "Self-evidently. And it is still messed up because you don't have to - being a person isn't something you _earn_ , like that. But that'd be a decision someone makes. You make the choice, you decide what it's worth, you deal with what it costs. But that's not even what the story does. That's not what it says." 

"No," agrees Natasha, "it says that being loved is your only way out, and it's going to hurt you and damage you and ruin you and then you're going to get thrown away and forgotten, but if you've been _good enough_ , after you've been thrown away you might get your reward." 

"It says what the Boy does is love," Steve says, flatly, finally distilling it down to what's bugging him. "And it isn't. Just isn't. Affection, maybe, jealous possessiveness, maybe, but that isn't love." 

And then he sighs, and drops himself back into the chair. "And it's a dumb story about a stuffed rabbit," he says. 

"It's trying to be something else," Natasha replies, picking up her water. "That's why it sticks to the inside of your head." She taps her temple with one finger. Her eyes have the kind of knowing look that says the person wishes they didn't know, because knowing is miserable. 

"Yeah," Steve acknowledges, a little bleakly. "It does that." 

 

In the end, to settle himself, Steve stays and watches a bit of a home renovation show with Natasha. They pick at it and toss ideas back and forth about what's on screen, until it looks like she's actually falling asleep. Then she grudgingly agrees she should go upstairs and do that in her own bed, and Steve says good-bye and heads home. 

He leaves the remains of the old tablet at the Tower. He's more than a little dubious about Tony's new version, but he figures he can at least try it until it makes him wish he hadn't. 

When Steve gets in the front door, Bucky's lying on his back on the futon, hands resting on his stomach and one knee bent up towards the ceiling. He acknowledges Steve's _hello_ with a slightly raised right hand and otherwise keeps staring through the stucco, a slight frown on his face. 

Steve sheds his coat and shoes; in the kitchen, he dumps the dregs of the last pot of coffee and puts another one on to boil. He feels almost tired, but like _tired_ isn't the right word and neither is _sad_ : it's somewhere between them, matched to the greyness of the weather outside. 

It's not the human capacity for evil that gets to him, really. He grew up knowing that. It's the human capacity for messing themselves and other humans up without _meaning_ to that gets hard to handle, the way people hit themselves and each other with little bits of poison every day, even when they're trying to do good. Especially when they're trying to do good. That's the part that gets depressing. 

Trying to shake that off, and since he's there anyway, he puts the dishes in the dishwasher away and the ones in the sink in the dishwasher, and wipes down the counters. Then, because he's still waiting for the coffee, he ends up wiping down the cupboard doors and the inside of the microwave and sorting through the fruit-bowl to make sure the ripest stuff is on the top instead of the bottom, threatening to bruise and rot while he's not looking. 

Not that anything tends to stay in the bowl that long, but you never know. That, and a bowl full of oranges, Asian pears, bananas and kiwis is a distraction, at least for a second - he hadn't even heard of two of them before waking up in the imitation recovery-room, and they definitely hadn't been something to pick up as an afterthought in the store. 

One of the nice things about the futon frame is how it has wide solid armrests-slash-foot-and-headboards, more than wide enough to safely take a cup of coffee or even a plate. Steve puts Bucky's coffee down on the one nearest his head. He doesn't ask if Bucky's eaten; there were eggshells in the sink and protein-bar wrappers in the garbage, so the answer is _yes, but probably not enough_ \- but not worth arguing over, yet. 

Bucky focuses on the room enough to give him a faintly amused look and ask, "Did the microwave even need to be wiped out?" 

"It doesn't now," Steve replies blandly, deflecting, and starts to move towards the coffee-table where the remotes are, vague ideas of sketching and listening to something in his head, before Bucky reaches out his right hand to catch Steve's and stops him. 

The tips of Bucky's fingers are cold, the length of them cool, his palm barely better; Steve cuts off the tail end of recalling that it used to be _his_ hands that were always cold and Bucky's that were warm. And Bucky says, "I never told you about Austria," like he's been thinking about it for four days. 

Probably has. 

Steve comes back around and puts his coffee down beside Bucky's, Bucky's hand still on his until Steve sits down on one knee and Bucky pulls Steve's right arm over and across his body, so that Steve's leaning on it, over him. 

Then Bucky rests finger and thumb on his eyes for a minute and says, "You want me to?" 

He only looks at Steve, meets his eyes, after he asks. There's the wariness that sometimes makes Steve want to ask what he expects, what he's afraid Steve's going to say or do, but honestly by now Steve's not sure Bucky even knows. And he is sure that now's not the time to point that out, work that through - just the time to show that whatever it is, it's not going to happen. 

So Steve rests his free hand on Bucky's right, where it went back to resting on his ribs, and says, "Same answer as always, Buck. You're up to telling me, yeah, I want to know." 

Bucky's gaze flicks back to the ceiling and he exhales slowly. When he says, "Command told us to brace for Jerry, we hit HYDRA instead. We got completely overrun - walked through us like we weren't there," his voice is flat, no inflection. And that much Steve already knew, but Bucky goes on and says, "I gave the order to surrender." 

There's weight, just barely, on _I_ and Steve almost stops him there, maybe a little of the wariness explained and Christ - 

"Turns out officers were all fucking dead," Bucky goes on, still without any inflection at all, like a recitation. "Not that it fucking mattered, wasn't like I was waiting to find out. We couldn't fight what was coming at us, dying in the attempt wouldn't even slow them down. Figured the fucking REMFs could shoot me for it later, if they ever got a fucking chance." 

Bucky stops for a second. There's no hitch, he doesn't swallow or take a deep breath, just . . .pauses, like he's far away. Then he says, "Didn't take long before I knew we were all dead anyway. Wasn't the German army, wasn't a POW camp, HYDRA just wanted warm bodies to throw at their production line. Austria, that meant prisoners." 

Steve nods, a little. Austria, it was enemy soldiers; further east, Schmidt hijacked trains headed to the camps. Not that it made survival any more likely. Schmidt was more than happy to spend lives like they were pennies. As far as he was concerned, he could always get more. It was harder to get materiel than warm bodies, and time was a Hell of a lot more valuable than workers. 

"Experiments started right off, too," Bucky goes on. "Start with there were a lot of them, different shit, and the people who lived got dumped back in the cages, but eventually it was just Zola, and nobody ever came back. Every day one or two of us disappeared with the guards." 

Bucky rubs his forehead, "Came for Gabe, I think - and he was just a fucking kid, and I guess I got tired of waiting to die. Or I just got mad. I dunno. Can't remember what I was thinking, just what I did, hauled off and hit one of them. Paid me back for that, with interest, then dragged me upstairs." 

He looks down at Steve's hand now, on his, and his voice goes flat again, loses what tone it'd started to get. "Didn't know what they were doing. What they wanted. What the fucking point was. Do now, didn't then. No questions, no talking, didn't care, there was nothing in our heads they fucking wanted. Might as well've been rats. Did a thousand fucking tests, blood, skin, everything. Hurt us till we screamed or threw up or passed out or died, wrote down how long it took and what. If we lived, injected us with something, did it again, and if we lived through that - just kept going. Same thing." 

Testing endurance, healing, recovery - part of Steve's mind runs through that. Tries to make it make sense. Most of it just aches. He'd've been on a plane, at the time. Or waiting to be on one. Or getting off one. Impatient with things not going right, tired, amused at a couple of the girls' reactions to their first time flying and trying to pretend he wasn't just as bad, inside. Forcing himself to keep cheerful, friendly, even though right then he couldn't imagine a worse thing than being on the ground, in Europe, and not there to fight. 

His imagination'd got broadened on that one pretty fucking quick. 

"Started out with thirty of us," Bucky says. "Thirty, maybe thirty-five, when they took me there. Don't know how long it was. Sometimes they'd get rid of a body, sometimes more than one, but night, day, didn't . . . I don't know. When he started that round, Zola had around thirty. Eventually . . ." and maybe the way one of his shoulders shifts is a shrug and maybe it's not, but he's quiet and he finishes, "just me." 

Bucky stares through their hands and his gaze flicks up to Steve's for a second. "Then you," he says.

Steve's throat closes, keeps him from answering before Bucky's looking at the wall beyond his shoulder and going on. "Half thought I was dead," he says. "In Hell. Seemed like a pretty good try at Hell. Then you were there so maybe Purgatory. Or maybe they were just fucking with me more, or I was hallucinating again." Steve resists the impulse to reach over and brush fingers over Bucky's forehead, smooth out the frown that's starting, and Bucky says, "Rest of me just figured on passing out from relief." 

And Steve remembers that. Snapping the straps and trying to get Bucky to see him, helping him stand up. The moment's always been clear as a photograph in his head, except with things a photo can't show: the noise outside, the _smell_ , how chill and damp the air was and how Steve still knew that the way Bucky was shivering, shuddering, didn't have a damn thing to do with standing mostly naked in the cold. 

All that, and the yawning, terrifying feeling that he didn't know what to do from there, and the relief when Bucky said, _I thought you were smaller_ , because maybe it meant everything was okay. Because it sounded like him. 

"Think you had a lot of other stuff to pass out from," Steve says, in the pause. "I think you did, actually, while I was finding you clothes." And that was something he hadn't even thought of, either, so thank God the lab hadn't got rid of their garbage that day. Or however long the clothes'd sat there. Probably a while. They stank like the air, too. 

"Only the once," Bucky says, dismissive. "Tried to stand up too soon, everything spun out for a second." His right thumb moves a little, his jaw tightens and he adds, "Was fucking pissed as fucking Hell with myself, for being happy you were there. For being _glad_ you were anywhere near that shit-hole with me." 

Steve's throat is actually still mostly closed, but he makes himself shape words anyway, and keep them matter of fact when he says, "Probably the dumbest thing you've ever been mad at yourself for." 

He expects Bucky to argue, doesn't expect the sudden shift from distant and flat to tired and sardonic when Bucky says, "Not even close, Steve. Not even top fucking ten." He drops his eyes again and says, "I didn't want you there. That fucking Hell-hole was the last place I ever wanted you to be. I wanted you to be at home, where you'd've been okay." 

"If I'd been home," Steve says, quietly, "you'd've been dead, or at least . . ." he falters, looking for the right word and settling on, "lost. And I wouldn't've been okay. I wasn't okay. When I thought you could be dead, I _wasn't_ okay." 

Bucky doesn't answer. Doesn't look up, either. Steve can't stop his thoughts from veering to the damn story, but when they do he snarls. Silently. In his own head. Because he's not that fucking kid and Bucky isn't a God-damned toy. Because that's _sick_. 

Bucky doesn't say anything. After a minute Steve clears his throat, looking down at their hands, and says, "I've sort of wondered, actually - did that doctor actually clear you for duty?" 

It does what he wants it to, the question, which is lighten the look in Bucky's eyes, at least after he's actually parsed the words. "Not really," he replies. "Not willingly, anyway. I just flat out told him I'd go AWOL if he didn't and if I had to do that I'd have to fucking hike all the way to wherever the fuck you were, and how would _that_ be for my fucking health?" 

Steve shakes his head, amused, and Bucky rolls his eyes, but for a second there's a smile beside them, even if it doesn't get further. "I was fine," he says. "For anything any fucking doctor could've done anything about, I was fine." 

The amusement fades; the skin beside his eyes smooths back out. "Not like they could do anything about the nightmares or the crawling under my skin," he goes on, quieter. "Nothing did, except drinking, sometimes. And - " he hesitates and his eyes close for a second, something wry and self-mocking twisting across his face before he says, "you. Which is why when we were in that fucking house and the drinking _wasn't_ working, I ended up crawling on top of you and messing up your neck." 

Steve's moving before Bucky finishes the words, really, to brush the line of Bucky's face with curled fingers and get him to look up, so he sees when Steve bends his head to kiss him. Not long or hard, just - there. Right. 

"Good," Steve says, quietly, not sitting back up much. "At least I did something while I wasn't paying attention to what I should've. And if you've ever got the impression I've ever been anything but grateful you decided to do that," he adds, "I swear to God it's the wrong one." 

Bucky's right hand'd gone to the back of his head almost on automatic; now his fingers close and open, gently, while it looks like Bucky's trying to decide which kind of expression to have, and ends up settling on retreat behind a tired, exasperated, "Idiot." 

There are a lot of things that go through Steve's head, like a shaken mix, and one of them is a moment on the couch when the couch was here and it's probably the one that means that after he kisses Bucky again and rests his forehead against Bucky's, he says, "Yeah, but I'm your idiot." 

And he can feel Bucky's hand tighten on the back of his neck, feel and hear the sharpness of the inhale even if Bucky's trying to hide it; Bucky starts to say, "Steve - " but Steve opens up his hand and cradles the side of Bucky's face, his jaw, kisses him again and longer to stop the words, whatever they were going to be. 

Then he kisses the corner of Bucky's jaw, the skin just in front of his ear, his temple. "I am," he says. "And you know that." 

When Bucky turns his head to catch Steve's mouth again it's probably to stop _him_ from talking anymore. But that's okay. It's not like he really needs to _talk_ to get this point across. 

 

Once upon a time, Tony'd used up about half an hour to give Steve an explanation of the Many Worlds Interpretation that probably could have been managed in five minutes by someone who wasn't Tony. On the other hand, Steve hadn't had a lot that was happy to occupy his mind that particular afternoon, so there would have been worse ways to spend the half-hour. 

He finds himself thinking about it a lot more often than he would've expected. Right now, lying beside Bucky on the futon and idly stroking his fingers down Bucky's back, he finds himself thinking about how it means that somewhere out there is a Steve Rogers who can't do this, who can't use sex and touch and everything else that can come with two bodies being close - can't use it to get around all the stuff Bucky can't hear, or can't believe. Or - because he's learned just a _bit_ about physiology by now - know at least one thing that's pretty reliable at getting Bucky to relax, breaking any circles his head's got trapped in and disrupting the way physical pain feeds into them, at least for a while. Steve lets Bucky lead, with that, but it's still _there_. And it makes a lot of other things possible, things that stop short of actual sex but are still frankly a God-send, getting through the weeks. 

Somewhere out there is a Steve Rogers who doesn't get to have any of that, and Steve pities that poor son of a bitch more than he could possibly, _possibly_ say. 

Right now Bucky's stretched out on his front, mostly, head resting on his right arm and his eyes half-closed. Partly because Steve tugged him over, so Steve _can_ trace lines on his back, or flatten his palm and rub moving circles that sort of gently suggest Bucky's muscles get the hint and remember how to relax. 

Steve's not exactly surprised when Bucky breaks the comfortable silence by asking, "Figure out what was on the tablet?" If Steve bothered being surprised every time Bucky saw through something Steve kind of wished he didn't, he might not have time to be anything else. And it's erratic, what Bucky notices on a bad day, a bad week: sometimes Steve might still just as well write out a detailed note about everything he's doing and most of the things he's thinking, but sometimes the only thing Bucky's that closely tuned to is Steve's emotions, specifically about him. And then sometimes they both pretend Bucky hasn't noticed something, even if he has, because he doesn't want to deal with it and gets to decide not to. 

So Steve's not surprised, and he sits on the urge to sigh. He slides his hand down to Bucky's lower back, digging knuckles in with just enough pressure to suggest to the fascia and muscle that they still know how to move and act more like soft tissue, less like bone. "Yeah," he says, honestly. "Wanna know?" 

He thinks Bucky expected him to deflect, because it takes a second before Bucky says, "Yeah, sure. Why not." He pushes himself up onto his forearms so he doesn't have to look up to see Steve's face. 

There's a lot that Bucky only shows in his eyes, in the skin around them, tiny changes and movements; right now they've gone guarded, like he's waiting for something to hit. Steve takes a breath and says, "You were looking up a kids' story. One of the ones with a really fucked up moral that nobody realizes is that fucked up because it's all wrapped up in, I dunno, the story equivalent of frilly lace. Like putting arsenic in icing sugar. Something like that." 

Bucky looks back down at his hands; Steve can't see his eyes, but he can see that he was right about Bucky being hard on himself about it by the way Bucky's jaw tightens for a second. "Huh," he says, evenly. "I don't remember." 

"You're not missing anything," Steve says. He means it to be firm, but thinks it comes out a little harsher than he was aiming for, and Bucky glances at him for a second. He shrugs. "When I say it's poison, I mean it. Hell," he adds, maybe seeing a way to divert everything, "it might even be heretical." 

He kind of suspects Bucky sees what he's trying, but the habit of laughing at Steve for that kind of thing's way too ingrained, and Steve was kind of counting on that. 

"You're ridiculous," Bucky says. "You know that." 

"I might forget," Steve returns, "except you keep telling me." He pulls his head away when Bucky reaches over to muss his hair, but not quite far enough, and Bucky finishes with a light shove to the side of his head. But then the dry amusement fades, like it slides off his face and leaves the thoughtful distance there again. The one with the dangerously sharp edges. 

"I really don't remember," he says, tone of his voice matched to the look. "Just skips. Like a record. Where I thought I did things and it turned out I didn't, turned out time passed and I couldn't remember it. Then you came home, and everything - wasn't sure to start with where I was. Or when." He shrugs, pretending it doesn't matter. 

Steve pushes Bucky's hair back from his face. "You're here," he says, "now," and on one level he deserves the look of amused irritation and exasperation Bucky gives him and on another he's serious. And on that level it means something. 

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Bucky says, dryly. 

"That's 'Captain Obvious, retired,'" Steve corrects mildly, and Bucky snorts as if in disbelief. Then he reaches over with his left hand to catch Steve's chin and pull him close enough to kiss. 

"Shut up, Steve," he says. 

 

It's at least two hours later when they bother noticing that at some point they knocked both cups of coffee onto the floor, and it's just a good thing the area-rug in here's already dark brown and deep blue because it means that the part where a good half of it's soaked in doesn't matter. But the living-room probably will smell like coffee forever. 

Bucky's still quiet, the rest of that evening and most of the next day. But the wariness thins out to nothing, and the quiet could just be from being tired. Steve definitely thinks he's got a right to be tired. 

Eventually, though, Steve has to give in and write a really long, kind of rant-like email to Sam about exactly how messed up that _damn_ story is. With citations. 

Sam replies, _You should set up a blog, man. Pseudonym. Call it 'Someone is WRONG in Literature'. No, no: 'Something is WRONG in our Culture!'_

Steve sends back, _Don't tempt me_. 

He also gets an email from Clint that makes him laugh and stick it in one of the folders for the few emails he actually keeps instead of sending them wherever the email client sends them when he hits the delete button. 

It reads: _and here's your official validation: that fucking book is the worst. it is one of less than a dozen books I actually endorse burning. I am willing to be quoted on this._

It's nice to have backup, sometimes. 


End file.
